


Flight

by Sophisticated_Adult



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: Forte swears a lot, Gen, M/M, just a heads up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 09:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2383808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophisticated_Adult/pseuds/Sophisticated_Adult
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Forte can do is keep running.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight

Forte puts off the inevitable. He does a pretty good job of it, at first.

He’s a frugal guy. Besides, he’s been scrimping and saving and hacking into various banks and businesses ever since he barged into Wily’s lab and saw what the old man was doing with the blueprints Forte stole for him. Never enough to get noticed, and tax-dodgers would rather a thief make off with 0.02% of their stash than alert local authorities to its existence. But he’d only been planning for himself and Gospel (and, okay, in his stupid fantasies, maybe Rock as well). The Forte of five months ago hadn’t counted on toting around a wide-eyed miracle of science and a younger brother slowly getting more suspicious of what was going on.

They don’t ask for much, though. They’re good kids, X naturally and Zero because he’s not quite old enough to question his big brother just yet, although he’s getting there. The naiveté won’t last forever. Not from a Wilybot, anyway.

Immediate concerns: food, lodging. Cheap hotels are plentiful, although they bring up a new problem: beds. He doesn’t trust either of them with their own room for a second, not with X so new to the world and Zero good-looking enough to attract the wrong sort of attention. So one room, three beds, right? Except a queen and a single are always cheaper than three singles, something about family discounts. Forte gives no shits about what humans might think of the three of them in that set-up, except they’ll talk if someone thinks to ask. For now, at least, he cares more about the cash it saves each night. Maybe later, with the savings, they could switch it up. Maybe when he isn’t quite so paranoid. Because there are people looking, Rock at least if absolutely no-one else, but Wily is too proud to let Zero wander off without fulfilling whatever deranged purpose the old man has in mind for him. Maybe they’re working together. Maybe pigs are flying in hell.

That makes Forte feel a little better. Even if the two doctors send out their full forces to drag their wayward sons back home, they’re both too far gone to even consider allying with each other. Maybe they’ll actively try to screw each other up, too – false trails and all that. It’s what Forte would do.

There are too many maybes, the optimistic ones mere molehills compared to the avalanche waiting to happen of everything that could (would) go wrong.

Where was he? Beds, right. Queen and a double, fuck what the humans think (but worry about it anyway). He’d originally planned to share with Zero and give X the single. Then X kept trying to sneak into their bed anyway, saying he was cold. It’s mildly interesting that he’s so blatantly lying but Forte doesn’t have the robotic equivalent of a heart to kick him out, not after dragging him out here in the first place. It’s still uncomfortable as fuck, though, in a way sharing with Zero isn’t. He’s secretly glad when Zero says he’s okay with him taking the single, although Forte still feels a bit shit about foisting X on his little brother.

That fades when he notices their sleeping pattern. They can power down instantly, whenever they like, clock in their eight hours perfectly and wake up refreshed and ready to go. It usually results in Zero shaking Forte blearily awake while X is in the shower.

“Seriously,” Zero murmured to him during the first week, as though he’d waited for the running water before asking. “What’s going on?”

“That’s need-to-know. Wanna go sight-seeing?”

The look Zero gives is not impressed, and it has nothing to do with the fact that about the best sight they can see in this crappy town is the dilapidated mall. But he says nothing else, turns away to start messing with his hair in front of the cracked mirror. Normally Forte helps, but he’s only just woken up and Zero’s fuck-off vibes are pretty high today anyway. 

Zero hasn’t said much since then, but he hasn’t been too much of a moody little shit either, so as far as Forte is concerned that’s a victory. X is as sweet as always, absorbing what he can of the world through long car rides and shit hotel rooms. Forte wonders sometimes if his personality is pre-programmed, because at this point it’s teetering from ‘dangerously naïve’ into ‘seriously, how is this kid real?’ At least he’s not the sort to go rooting through drawers, because if he finds a hotel bible Forte has no idea how he’s going to explain that shit to someone who’s a month and a half old, hasn’t yet worked out to not instantly believe everything he’s told, and knows his creator personally.

Hell, why did he even bring X in the first place? Put a buster to his head and Forte still wouldn’t be able to answer. First it was just him and Gospel. Then he got to know Zero, got to the point where he couldn’t just abandon the guy to Wily’s insanity. Fair enough, so far. He might even have gotten sympathy with just Zero, might have been able to appeal to the soft-hearted idiocy that runs through the Light family like a plague - Blues excepted, of course, like the half-Wilybot that he is.

It wasn’t until Forte met up with Zero at the safehouse that he suddenly thought about the one who’d technically caused all this, what he might be used for – what kind of life X could expect. He dismissed it as the stupid idea that it was. But it didn’t go away, just festered under Zero’s questioning but (for now) trustful gaze until it was half-way to making sense. Then he was doomed. They’d detoured. They were remarkably successful in their thrown-together mission. At this point Zero knew about X’s existence, but he raised no objections when Forte laid out the plan.

X doesn’t seem to mind that much, even when he was told not to contact his family because that would ruin the surprise.

The shower cuts off while Forte is belatedly shoving himself into a shirt that needs washing and pants that have seen better days.

“Bathroom’s free.” X announces rather pointlessly, rubbing a towel in his short hair. He smiles as Zero stands up, doesn’t move when a hand is put on his shoulder and stays there an eyebrow-raising little too long. Forte stares. They aren’t looking at him.

Then Zero breaks off and goes into the bathroom. There’s a click. As X starts to bustle about, cleaning up what little mess they’ve made in their short stay, Forte shakes himself back to reality.

He’s not sure what to make of this new development.

They simply fit together, although perhaps that’s not so surprising – they’re the only ones of their kind, after all. Is there a name for what they are, or are they just more advanced robots as far as humans are concerned? Forte wonders. He wonders a lot of things, these days. He doesn’t have a clear end goal. No Rock to fight, no Wily to serve and suck up to when he can be bothered. Just run and survive.

_I did not think this through_ , Forte thinks glumly. He can’t see it ending well no matter how many scenarios he runs through, re-runs and then runs again just to be sure. His hands are steady on the steering wheel of the latest rental car, but inside he’s starting to fray at the edges. The rain is steady and unceasing. Mostly, he just sees the red lights of cars in front. Red eyes, waiting.

He’s lonely. He misses Gospel badly, more than he was expecting, as much as he knows the mutt can take care of himself. Hell, he even misses Rock, even fucking Blues’ little smirk would be welcome right now, which is a really bad sign. At some point, some days ago, Zero migrated to the back seat instead of the front. Forte glances in the mirror. X is dozing, head pillowed against his taller friend’s shoulder. Zero’s staring out the window. It’s impossible to get a read on his expression, but he doesn’t notice he’s being watched. They might look sweet, all cuddled together, to any idiot who can’t see the hidden tension.

Somewhere around day three of Zero’s existence, Forte had him up against the wall threatening him to leave Rock the fuck alone, that was his territory. Zero blinked at him, obvious recalibration underway beneath those stupidly pretty cornflower-blue eyes (whatever the hell Wily was thinking during the design process, Forte really didn’t want to know). Then he beamed a big, bright smile and said: “Sure! I don’t have any orders regarding  him. You’re Forte, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Forte let him down, eyeing him critically. “Don’t smile like that, at least at anyone outside. We’ve got an image to uphold, you know.”

“Okay.” Zero toned it down, but a goofy smile still remained. This was around the point where Wily was ready to let his ‘greatest creation’ out of sight, although in hindsight he was probably bugged to hell and back. Well, no harm in Wily overhearing Forte following his priorities, right? He could hardly defeat Rock if Zero defeated him first.

The Zero of then and the Zero of now - the one he’s looking at, the one whose mouth is a thin, tight line in an expression Forte’s never seen on him before - are only a few months apart. It might as well be a million years.

Forte flicks his eyes back to the road. All he can do is keep going.

**Author's Note:**

> Cheer up, Forte! At least you don't have to stick around for the unstoppable descent into failure and despair that is MMX canon! Isn't that great?!


End file.
